CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
G il joined her and Grandfather at breakfast a few mornings later, and he removed the sling on his arm to eat. Peace had settled on the household again. She dared hope it might stay.
“How is our guest?” Gil inquired. “How long will she be with us?”
Leona served him eggs and thick slices of bacon, considering the question.
The desperate coughing had faded to a faint rasp in Millie’s voice.
The sleep the laudanum afforded her improved her appearance, though she never left her room.
Evidence of nighttime raids to the kitchen pantry—the empty plates in her room—testified to the hearty continuance of her appetite.
“She’s better and won’t stay with us much longer, I think.” Though where Millie would go remained unknown. There had to be those of her circle she could rely on, as she had in the past, until some sort of verdict was reached.
“Hm. Good. We need to get back to normal around here.” Gil turned to her grandfather, sipping at his coffee, his expression wary. “You’re very quiet these days, William. I hope you’re not thinking of leaving us just yet?”
Her grandfather looked up with surprise in his eyes. “I’d like to stay on a while longer, Gil, until the situation has resolved.”
Leona stared hard at her husband. “Of course, he can stay.”
“Yes, of course.” Gil smiled, amiable, with much of his old humor.
Relieved, Leona nodded. But what to do with Millie, once she got over her illness, weighed heavily on her mind.
Her grandfather finished the last of his coffee and stood. “A walk will do me good while the sun is out. I’ll return before luncheon, Leona.”
“I’ll see you then. Enjoy your walk.”
Leona watched him leave, concerned. He appeared more subdued than she remembered ever seeing him. She hadn’t included him in Millie’s true history, either. The next time they were alone, she would certainly speak to him about it. He’d know what was best to do.
When the front door closed behind him, Gil spoke. “So, who is our guest? I know she’s been ill, but I think it’s high time we met.”
Leona laid her knife and fork down with a sigh. He was not going to be happy when she told him, but she had to now. “Oh, Gil, I didn’t want to worry you until you were better. She’s the wife of Jesper Frost, the murdered spiritualist.”
The silverware dropped from his hands with a clatter. “She’s who?” he thundered.
Leona flinched. The fragile peaceful accord had broken again.
“Explain yourself. How in heaven’s name did this happen after all you told me about them before Christmas? How did she find you?”
The fire in his eye made her long to call her grandfather back. “She had my card because Iris Frost gave it to her. She is hiding in fear of the man who killed her family. Gil, she has no other place to go.”
He struggled to contain himself, white at the lips and forehead. His breathing had become quite ragged. He did not look at her, focusing on the remains of breakfast on his plate.
“The newspapers didn’t mention a witness,” he bit out.
“No, they only knew she is missing.”
“So you haven’t yet told the police?”
“Millie signed a statement as a witness to Benedict’s innocence in the matter of the Frosts and his grandmother.” It had taken every ounce of energy she had to keep convincing Millie to adhere to her promise to write it, but in the end, she gave in.
“They’ve released him?”
“No, I—I haven’t sent it yet. But it’s ready for the post in the basket by the door.”
He stood and sat again, appearing beside himself. “I don’t understand you. After all we’ve been through.” He stood once more, stalked to the foyer, and returned with the basket in his hands. “It’s empty.”
“Grandfather must have taken the letters to the post office on his walk.” Her stomach twisted.
She lowered her voice, hoping her husband would, too.
“Gil, she needed help. She was quite ill, hungry, and desperate. And if taking her in meant freeing Benedict Van Wyn and returning him to his family—I had to do it.”
“You believe her?” he snarled, tossing the basket onto the table.
“Are you that na?ve? It’s a scheme cooked up between Van Wyn and the Frost woman.
They killed her family so they could steal the money and run away together.
She’s going to free him with this statement.
Your friend Daphne’s jewelry will finance their escape! ”
The pearls draped around Iris’s neck would not aid in anyone’s escape.
She opened her mouth to speak but closed it with a snap.
Had Millie, the wife of a confidence man, taken the jewelry herself before running away?
Was Leona that much of a fool? “Gil, I’ll bring her out and you can meet her.
You’ll see for yourself—Millie is a lot of things, but not a killer and neither is—”
“I refuse to meet her,” Gil said in a deadly voice. “I want her out of this house.”
Leona stared at him, stricken. His dark eyes glittered with terrible determination.
“You will obey me. I would protect you with my life, but I won’t be able to if you do not—damn it, Leona.
” He dropped his head into his hands and his shoulders shook.
“I almost lost you, twice!—if not for your grandfather’s intervention, you would have been in the line of fire. We are assailed from all sides.”
Doubt pricked at her. Not at her belief in Millie’s innocence, but that he was right.
She had brought a wolf to their door and let it into the house.
Once the newspapers knew Millie was the only surviving witness to her family’s murder, the killer could get to her here.
And Gil’s assassin was still out there. Her head spun.
Leona’s derringer was not enough firepower to defend them against such a force.
Gil owned a brace of pistols, but they lay in a box under the bed, untouched.
She never saw him clean them but perhaps the time had come.
Exhaustion struck her in waves, and she succumbed to her inability to fight her way through the labyrinth. “Yes, Gil.”
He looked at her; her own despair reflected in his eyes. “I’ll take her to a safe place, a church, or charity outside the city. That’s the best I can do.”
Loud knocking startled them both. The echo of Abigail’s footsteps followed her to the front door, where she spoke to at least two people, by the murmur of voices. Leona stood. Abigail entered the dining room with a hopeful expression.
“Policemen, m’um,” she said.
Gil rose. “Show them to the parlor, Mr. McCarthy.” To Leona he said, “Let’s hope this is good news for once.”
She followed him through to where two men stood in uniform by the fire, warming their hands. They hadn’t bothered to take off their dark blue great coats.
“Good morning, Mr. Gladney. My name is Officer MacDonald. Good news, we have caught the man who shot you,” the younger of the two policemen exclaimed.
“Henry Caldwell-Jones?” Leona asked.
“No, ma’am, quite another fellow,” young MacDonald replied.
“We’d like you to come down to the Raymond Street jail and identify the man. He won’t talk to us—”
“Yet,” his partner said.
“Except to say he was the one who shot you. We thought maybe if you spoke with him, he’d talk.”
“I’ll get my coat,” Gil said, but Abigail had already returned with their coats and helped him into it.
Leona thrust her arms into the one the housekeeper then held out to her. “I’m going, too.” Abigail, bless her, had brought her hat, scarf, and muff. But why in the world had the man confessed?
“Now, Raymond Street Jail is no place for a female.” Officer Durbin raised his hands as if to shoo her away. “You just stay home like a good woman and—”
“I will be damned,” Leona said. “I will not stay home.”
The youngster flinched. His enthusiasm got the better of him, however, and he held the door for Leona to go through first. The police chief’s carriage waited in the street for them, glossy black as the night, another uniformed man on the box with the reins in his hands.
He spoke to a fourth policeman, the man who had been standing guard since dawn.
The cold, damp air clung to her eyelids and chilled her cheeks.
Leona helped Gil into the carriage, his eyes sharp with anger and fright.
Hope had risen in her, almost unbearable to endure.
Who would want to kill Gil if not Henry?
***
T HE KING’S COUNTY JAIL on Raymond Street, a foreboding fortress of soot-streaked stone, loomed over her. Up steep steps to heavy wooden doors, passing through a dark foyer, and down a short hallway to the front desk sergeant’s presence.
“Get the chief,” their escort said. “I’ve brought Gilbert Gladney.”
A murk lay in the air. The light struggled to enter through the small dirty windows.
A pot-bellied stove in the corner radiated a strong heat and uniformed men lounged around it, serving themselves from the coffee pot atop it.
Two women leaned together on a bench, sharing their shawls.
Perhaps they’d only come in from the cold, but what a terrible place to seek comfort.
The walls were smoke-stained—hard to tell what color they had once been.
Mud swirled across the floor, the tread of hob-nailed boots marking a path back and forth.
The smell was—what was it? Layers of human misery.
The stale dirt of poverty and fear. The sour sweat of anger and despair.
A man entered, short-legged and wide-shouldered, blond hair plastered to his head. A fresh bruise marked his cheek. He had the air of a man who’d just won a fight. “I’m Sergeant Mal O’Brien.”
Leona moved closer to Gil and tucked her hand under his elbow with a squeeze. “Is Detective Day here?”
“He’s out on a job,” the man replied.
“They said you caught the man who shot me. Who is he?” Gil asked.